I've been in IT for thirty years and I've learned never to release large changes in production without user acceptance testing in QA, and the coming vehicle rebalance definitely qualifies as large.

It is going to create a HUGE disruption to the game over an extended period of time, something that a production game just can't afford. DUST is officially out of beta so it shouldn't be subjected to sustained testing and rebuilding.

A test server would let experienced pilots and AV users go at it hammer and tongs in any number of fast iterations. Rapid respecs and complete tear downs would speed the rebalance so this task won't take half a year. All this can occur outside the released game and then be introduced as a clean and functioning unit that can be fully explained to the current users.

You just don't test in production!

this has been suggested before, and i think CCP said it would be hard to do. but hell it would save them a lot of time if we could test it out.

I've been in IT for thirty years and I've learned never to release large changes in production without user acceptance testing in QA, and the coming vehicle rebalance definitely qualifies as large.

It is going to create a HUGE disruption to the game over an extended period of time, something that a production game just can't afford. DUST is officially out of beta so it shouldn't be subjected to sustained testing and rebuilding.

A test server would let experienced pilots and AV users go at it hammer and tongs in any number of fast iterations. Rapid respecs and complete tear downs would speed the rebalance so this task won't take half a year. All this can occur outside the released game and then be introduced as a clean and functioning unit that can be fully explained to the current users.

You just don't test in production!

Then there's the matter of your test population. Most veteran dropship pilots took a respec and no longer have any points in them so they won't be testing. A QA server would let CCP give them pilot characters to wring out the new birds.

I took the respec completely out of my glorious logistics ships



What's worse...with only a few million SP in them I'm still probably one of the best Logi pilots in this game, all 7 of us

The problem is not CCP doesn't want to give us a test server, the problem is SONY will not allow CCP to have one.

Even if it will save the game and ultimately make more money for Sony?
What is the downside for Sony?

Sony has their own QA process to ensure new updates from CCP do not damage any PS3s. This process is probably the reason why Sony would never allow CCP to have a server where they could make changes on a rapid, untested basis.

The idea of a test server is by far the best direct solution. But, considering the numerous hurdles involved, it isn't practical on PSN. A respec system would allow people to fully test and flesh out vehicles. Ensuring ample data and opinions could be collected. I'd rather have 1~2 months of people testing tanks and dropships and get them fixed quickly. The alternative and very likely scenario would be six months of minor tweaking. During this time vehicles would largely go unused till things are leveled out.

CCP has a test server, it is called singularity. As luck would have it, Dust used to run on singularity.

Now part of the problem would most likely be that you would need a different build (game install) for the game to work on singularity, and that i something I am not sure that Sony would allow.

The way eve works, or at least used to work, is you could download the client and update it to run on singularity, but that client would no longer work on tranquility (the main server shard.)

So IF (and that is a BIG IF) Sony would allow dust to have two seperate installs per PS3 I don't see why they could not do this.